


Trendsetter

by chellerrific



Category: Bleach
Genre: Affectionate Violence, Gen, Tongue Piercings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinji comes home like any other day—with one small difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trendsetter

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do a bit of a warm-up and this little scene came to me, so here we are.

Hiyori was the first one to notice something different when Shinji strolled into the compound that afternoon. Oh, sure, the shit-eating grin was the same one he always wore, but he seemed just a touch _too_ pleased with himself.

She planted herself directly in front of him, a not-quite-four-and-a-half-foot wrecking ball that refused to be ignored under any circumstances. “What have you done?” she asked, the question more an accusation than anything.

“Why, Hiyori, whatever could you mean?” He over-enunciated his words, making the _thing_ in his mouth glaringly obvious even without the telltale clack of metal against his teeth.

Hiyori caught his chin in one small but powerful hand, squeezing his lower lip down to hold his mouth open. She squinted, narrowing her already-narrowed eyes further. “The hell is that?” she demanded, clearly prepared to unleash unholy terror no matter what he said. Hiyori didn’t actually have to know what a thing was to know she didn’t like it; dislike was her base mode.

She was still squeezing his face but he was used to holding conversation while Hiyori was mauling some part or other of him. “Oh, this old thing? This would be a tongue ring. Jeez, Hiyori, plug in.”

She balled up her free hand to slug him. Man was he good at pissing her off. (Shinji prided himself on his mastery of a diverse range of skills.)

Someone caught her fist from behind before she could let loose. Love’s head appeared over her shoulder, leaning in to get a look at Shinji’s new toy. Obligingly, Shinji let his tongue slither out, forcing Hiyori to yank her hand away in disgust when the two made contact.

Mashiro and Rose also crowded around to see, further keeping Hiyori from venting her feelings about this development. It was aggravating, to say the least.

“Ooh,” Mashiro cooed, wide-eyed and reaching out a tentative fingertip. “Does it hurt?”

“ _Dreadfully_ ,” Shinji lied with great earnestness. “Will Mashiro kiss it better?”

Mashiro giggled. “Oh Shinji, you’re such a bad boy.”

There was a grunt of irritation from the sink where Kensei stood washing the dishes. He seemed to be the only one besides Hiyori with nothing but disdain for the whole spectacle. Hiyori, however, did not consider him an ally; after all, Kensei had gotten those things in his ears some time ago, hadn’t he? It wasn’t the ring itself to which Kensei objected, just the obnoxiously childish reactions everyone was having to it.

Rose inspected it carefully before declaring it fitting for Shinji but too gauche for his own personal tastes; Love decided it was “pretty sweet” but “probably a pain” (“you know, like for eating and stuff,” he added eloquently, by way of an explanation); Shinji consented to Mashiro’s request to touch it, and after she did, she fell to the ground in some kind of loud squealing fit—it might have been alarming were this not a fairly regular occurrence for her. Hachi stood back before taking his turn to look it over with polite curiosity, but he retreated quietly when Lisa appeared.

Shinji obediently stood with his mouth wide open while Lisa inspected it from every angle. “Fascinating. I wonder what affect this would have on oral copulation.”

“I’d be delighted to find out with you. After all, Lisa, you are my first love.”

“Pass,” Lisa said dispassionately, with a slight but firmly dismissive raise of her hand. It was like the two of them were reading lines from a script, the interplay a necessary ritual even after so many decades.

It was enough to make Hiyori want to slam their heads together.

Lisa was also permitted to touch it, though she did so with more clinical thoroughness than Mashiro had. She even gave it a bit of a tug.

“Ah, ah,” Shinji said, moving his whole head forward to minimize the damage. “Be gentle with me, Lisa, it’s still tender.”

“Wimp,” Lisa said unsympathetically, but she seemed satisfied enough to return to her porn after that.

Hachi approached Shinji a second time then, offering the services of his kido for any pain, and Hiyori finally decided she’d had enough. She stalked off, sandals slapping heavily against each step as she made her way upstairs, where she finally sunk reflexively into what Shinji had come to refer to as her Super Hiyori Sulking Chair.

She wasn’t sure how long she was there before Shinji settled himself onto the arm of the chair, throwing his own arm around the back as he reclined as much as possible on his perch. She resisted the urge to shove him off violently, which she felt was extremely charitable and deserving of some kind of reward. Since no one was going to give her one, she’d give it to herself, and silently decided to punch Shinji in his stupid face one extra time later.

“I don’t think you got a very good look before. Want to see again?” He turned his face towards her, tongue luxuriantly on display.

“The only reason I can come up with why you think this is a good idea is you _want_ me to kick your ass.”

“Well, it’s the one request I could ever have that I know you’d fulfill,” he said dryly.

“Just get that stupid thing out of my face,” she said, resolutely turning away in disgust.

“Come on, Hiyori, you’re harshing my buzz. It’s cool! Look, I can be a one-man band.” He clacked out a rhythm against his teeth, adding sibilants and plosives to round the performance out.

Hiyori cringed, grinding her teeth together as her fragile restraint threatened to shatter. In one explosive movement, she launched herself out of the chair, grabbed Shinji’s shirt front, and growled, “Listen!” into his face.

“Listening,” he said, as impassive as ever in the face of an outburst like this.

“I am really sick of your stupid ties and your stupid hats and now _this_ —this _thing_ —”

“Tongue ring, Hiyori. It’s a ring in my tongue, if that helps. A little mnemonic device for you.”

She gave him a rough shake. “Listen!” she commanded again. “It’s all so goddamned vile, the way you prance around here like some kind of _human_ —!” She spat out the word like she was calling him a maggot or a cockroach—those things might have been improvements to Hiyori’s mind, actually.

Shinji let his eyes flutter closed briefly in understanding. Hiyori was so bad at coming out and just _saying_ things, sometimes pushing her buttons was the only way to keep her from letting her million petty grievances fester indefinitely. “It doesn’t mean anything, Hiyori. It’s just a piece of jewelry.”

“And those are just human clothes you take so much pride in.”

Shinji had long since given up broaching the subject of fashion with the girl who insisted on always dressing like it was laundry day.

“We’re not humans, Shinji,” she hissed, punctuating her statement with another shake for good measure. “We’re—”

“Shinigami?” Shinji finished, all trace of a smile gone from his lips.

The word only threw her for the briefest second. “Visoreds,” she corrected in little more than a snarl.

“Well, since we are the only eight currently in existence, I think it’s perfectly acceptable for _us_ to be the ones to dictate what is or isn’t customary for Visoreds.”

She sent him flying across the room with a punch to his jaw. She would have been impressed with the crash he made when he hit the wall, but she was far too pissed off to find it very satisfying at the moment.

Shinji took the blow with as much good humor as he could muster. Being Hiyori Sarugaki’s friend was a dangerous venture, with a number of bodily risks, but it was one he had no intention of stopping any time soon.

Hiyori adjusted to change slowly, grudgingly, often kicking and screaming. It was one of her many charms. But it hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d recently started wearing those hairpins he’d gotten her for her birthday two years before. It was touching, and proof that the offending piercing was something she would come to accept in time as well. He’d just have to make sure that for the next two or three years he didn’t flaunt it, unless he was deliberately trying to wind her up. He didn’t think that would be too difficult—he was _usually_ trying to wind her up, after all.


End file.
